A Court Of Shadow and Blood

☆ Mind Play ☆

Eblis had nightmares. Terrible ones.

Ones where she bit the wings off of an attor, a slight swaying beneath her feet, bloodlust on her tongue as silvery blood slipped down her throat. Her mother was dead. Her brother was not coming to save her. She was alone. So so alone.

She was being beaten. The guard who’d allowed her to fill in for his shift had been found out, it seemed, and she was being punished for not doing her job. She took the bruising punches and kicks, and limped away with a broken rib. Eblis had no one to bandage her, and she’d learned the hard way how to do it herself long before. She’d screamed in pain doing it then, but she had not when the male had been beating her.

She breathed in the all-too-familiar scent of brandy and salty air, her ears wrapped with the sound of a roaring ocean and laughter. But when she turned, it was not her beloved crewmates—Kiri, Hakua, Finnigan, and many many more who’d met her fierceness with more fierceness—who were laughing and sharing drinks. It was the King who laughed, and the spray of salt water that had made it on board sloshed along the bodies and wiped the deck with blood. Her friends were killed simply for befriending her—and once more, she found herself bereft of warmth. 

Suddenly, a breath was skittering along her skin, her wings pinned beneath her and spread wide for exploring hands. The same dark head and pitch-black eyes as a face she’d stared at and cared for for so long hovered over the membrane of her wings admiringly. She did not move, for some reason. Could not move. 

She woke, startled, into darkness. There was someone in her room.

But the faelights flickered on in response to her, and Eblis, soaked in sweat and panting, met the face of Feyre. The female stared at her, wide-eyed and still, like an unsuspecting bird being caught by too-quick hands. 

Eblis swallowed her panic—ran a hand through her hair as she sat up in her simple chemise and leggings. “How did it go?” Her voice came out smooth and controlled.

“Fine. I found nothing interesting.” Feyre scanned her face. “Are you alright?” Night framed her back through the window.

“Just the usual, so yes. I am alright.” 

“Rhysand has nightmares too,” Feyre then said. 

Eblis glanced up at her. Then away. “I’m sure he does.” She waved a flippant hand as if to rid of the miasma of bad dreams that cloaked her. “Being back in Hybern is making me antsy, I suppose. Don’t mind me.”

Feyre only nodded unconvincingly before beginning to disarm herself. The female eyed the bed, nestled against the wall beneath the lone window in the room. “Where did that come from?”

Eblis explained, "Madalyn used to come to me when she had nightmares. When she grew out of that, she'd sometimes just stay the night in my room when she wanted."

"You two are very close," the female said.

“She is my hope, my future, and my heart,” she replied with an aching truth. She was everything she had lost and hoped to gain. My queen.

Feyre settled on the bed, setting her items up around it. As Eblis rolled over in her bed, giving the female privacy to change, Feyre said, “You love her so much. It’s a side of you I never expected.” 

“Hm.” She snapped her finger, and the faelights shut off silently, drenching the room in darkness. “Goodnight, Feyre.”

A few moments pause. “Goodnight.”

***

“General-Spymaster?” Knocking on her door. “General-Spymaster, I have something to discuss with you.”